Unfamiliar
by iNiGmA
Summary: Hermione wakes up in an unfamiliar room. An unfamiliar bed. She doesn't know how she got there, has no memory of it. But she isn't alone.


_**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter, not mine._

_**A/N:** _Hello guys! Wrote this little thing for a Drabble Prompt over on Hermione's Nook over dinner in Lisbon. The prompt was one word: unfamiliar.

_Huge thanks to **Animalium** for betaing! _

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**Unfamiliar**

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I blink, and the darkness fizzles out softly, blurring into an endless sea of lights. They are shining with all the brightness of early evening. Reflecting across the glass; a window to the city below. Red. Orange. Yellow. The glow of a cityscape awakening to the night. I have also awoken to the night. Like an owl; a night creature.

The wind rustles. It flows in through the cracked windows, sighs across my skin; bringing with it drunken shouts and laughs and car horns and leaving goosebumps on my arms.

I stare at the glass, which is black as a mirror. Dark, despite all the lights hiding behind it. What is this city? I do not remember it. What are these sheets that feel as soft as clouds and smell of fresh parchments and library books long hidden away?

I don't know it.

It's not the small flat I share with Ron. Diagon Alley doesn't glow this brightly, doesn't shine with all the inventive fervor of over a hundred years of Muggle history.

It is unfamiliar.

As unfamiliar as Hogwarts was on that first day when I walked the halls armed only with the knowledge of a thousand, thousand books, attempting to fit in by pretending to understand this current that has always run inside me. When I rattled off obscure facts from books no one had ever heard of just so I could say, _see? _I understand. I _know. _I'm one of you. I know about your history, your society, about Harry. Harry, I know you too. I know _your _history. Don't you? _Don't you? _

Oh, is that real magic? It doesn't sound like anything I've ever read. It doesn't _feel _like magic. Do you believe it, or are you only pretending too?

_Are you like me? _

Are you _sure _that's a real spell?

Well, it's not very good, is it?

I know. I know it all; everything. I _am _sure. You see… I've read it all.

But this, now, is worse. What _is _this city? Is it London still? I sense no magic. No current of life. It doesn't sound like London, doesn't _feel _like London. Is it Paris? Madrid? Lisbon?

How can I study if I don't know where to begin?

I stare, and I can't understand. Would Ron secret me away? Whisk me off to a place so unfamiliar with not a moment's warning?

The thought is exciting, somehow. Romantic. But… unlikely. Ron… And I hate to admit it to myself, but Ron wouldn't do this. As much as I love him. As much as we fit around each other like two halves of a heart that broke once, more lives ago then I can count, and fell back together when our lips touched, I know he doesn't have the spark of romance that would spirit me away to a city I've never seen.

Ron is not mystery nor intrigue. He is dependable. Sometimes with hard or dry or jagged edges, but always, _always _solidly there. Loving me through gentle kindness and fits of sullen anger both.

But Ron doesn't plan secret adventures. Ron doesn't do romance, doesn't understand it. His love is bigger than that. Deeper. Simpler.

No, this gesture is unfamiliar.

But he is there, solidly at my back as I stare into the lights.

Merlin. _Why can't I remember? _

He shifts then, his arm wrapping around me. It trails across my stomach, and I reach up to twine my fingers through his… and I freeze. Suddenly all the air is gone from my lungs. All the air has frozen and turned to ice.

Because it doesn't feel… it isn't… _it isn't his hand. _

It isn't Ron's.

The fingers are too thin. Too delicate. The nails too perfect. The skin much too soft.

Ron… Ron doesn't care for these things. Ron's hand is hard and full of calluses from a holding a wand too tightly as an Auror for five years too long. From a hundred explosions at the joke shop. From a million jokes that he doesn't need the moisturizing potion.

_It's for witches. Haha. Good try, Hermione. _

_This _hand is soft.

I am afraid. Terrified even. But the Hat put me in Gryffindor for some undefinable reason. Something about me believing that even though I was smart and would do perfectly in Ravenclaw, I had read a million times a million books about heroes, and I wanted to be brave. Bravery was that thing I didn't have in spades but always wanted. And the Hat told me that wanting to be brave, valuing courage, was enough. And then it said _Gryffindor! _for the entire Hall to believe… and over the next seven years I found it.

I _thought _I found it.

I reach for it now, pull it out of all the cracks that form the map of me.

I turn.

.

.

.

The world… shatters.

.

.

.

The eyes that meet mine are grey. Like molten silver. Like fog made solid.

The hair that falls across his forehead is pale. Smooth as silk.

His skin is crystalline. Utterly perfect.

He smiles. It's like sunlight cutting through clouds after a storm. Bright and overwhelming, and full of love and love and _love_.

And he isn't Ron.

And I can't breathe.

I can't breathe at all.

"Good morning," he whispers, like the world hasn't fallen off its axis. Like everything is normal. Perfect. "How'd you sleep?"

I whimper. I can't help it. The courage I gathered around me is stretched too tight. It shatters. The shards dig into my skin. Shred my lungs to pieces.

"What's wrong?" His eyes tint to a shade of concern. From silver to lead.

"R-Ron," I whimper. "Ron…"

The lead turns to coal. His eyes are black, empty holes.

"Hermione," he whispers. "Ron's… _gone_. Don't you remember?"

I shake my head. Silently. Wordlessly.

He pales. "Don't you remember… us?"

I don't. I _don't_.

I don't remember anything except the warmth of Ron's eyes.

Everything else… Draco… is unfamiliar.

.

.

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_**A/N:** Thanks so much for reading! I don't entirely know where I was going with this (in fact I'm still not sure because there was a 1k word limit and I ran out :P), and it's possibly not the best birthday present for Hermione (sorry!) but I hope you guys enjoyed it! This was meant to be a one shot, and probably will be, but if I get inspired I may continue. Unsure._

_Oh, and also I really wanted to try first person present POV. That was fun._

_Reviews are awesome. :)_

_Rina_


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